The Father, the Son, and the Holy Goat.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life." - Jesus, John 14:6

This is the quote that I saw as I was on a train leaving Liverpool Street station earlier today. This did not have the effect of bringing me closer to God.

What made me laugh was the building directly adjacent to this quotation. The name that I saw just after reading Jesus' little thought was: "Balls Brothers."

A Jesus quote and then, straight afterwards, the word 'balls.' Well, I thought it was fuuny and a good way to sum it up for those who do not believe, which is a category I never really considered myself to be in until now.

I was raised a Christian (C of E, none of that Catholic nonsense, despite my going to a Roman Catholic Primary School), and never really considered my religious beliefs until my tedious train journey. The trouble that I have with religion is that I am quite a scientific chap, and religion is ludicrous. Consider this:

You are a psychiatrist. A patient, let's call him Hugh, enters your surgery and says that he has seen a man with a beard who has told him to give all his money to charity and go a live with a load of other men in a really old building. Hello loony-bin (please excuse my political-correctness).

Now imagine that you are in exactly the same situation, except the 'man with a beard' named himself 'Jesus'. Ooh, yes, on your way, be happy in your monastery.

By no means am I an atheist, I am just finding it increasingly difficult to believe that the bible isn't full of utter twaddle. Whatever I decide, religion will always have a large role to play: it makes for excellent things to cry when you hit your thumb with a hammer - that is, your right thumb, on your right, hammering hand. I'm a natural carpenter.

I'm saved?

I happen to hold in my head lots of trivia, random snippets of information which almost certainly can be of no use. For example, did you know that Colgate faced big obstacles marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries, because Colgate translates into the command “go hang yourself?”

I can think of no situation where that would be useful, and yet it is committed to my memory. Happily, however, this is not all bad. An article in the Daily Mail (oh, what an impressive work of fiction that is...) seems to think that trivia is good. And I agree, mainly because otherwise about 50% of my knowledge is entirely pointless. Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protesters to death (that is a fact that makes me roar with laughter), and yet I have already forgotten most of my taught information. If you needed me to chop out your liver, for whatever reason, I would struggle. Enormously. Not only because I'm not medically trained.

Despite the positive tone that the Daily Mail makes, I struggle to see how trivia can help me. If anyone wants to pay me somewhere around £100,000 p.a. to tell them random 'stuff,' please leave a comment.

Let this post stand as a comment on the Daily Mail - it has two redeeming features:

1) The best TV Guide

2) Garfield comics

Mmm. Sleep.

I recently watched a Chinese film, dubbed into English. I won't be doing that again for a while. By no margin was it the worst film in the world, but it was full of over-the-top soppy moments, all of the actors over-acted and it was generally quite bad. However, I had only two options: watch this film, or go to sleep.

The following morning, I woke up feeling refreshed.

A better time

The world was a better place when people believed in God. There are still many believers of the various gods, of course, but there are many, many fewer people who still put their faith in the big bloke in the sky.

Normally, I would not morn this, I would continue my life as if nothing has changed, however humans naturally gravtiate towards putting their lives in someone or something else's hands. This has led to the creation of such phenomena as 'New Age,' or as I affectionately call it, 'Utter Bollocks.'

People will use phrases such as 'this room has positive energy.' Really? If that is the case, what is it doing? Where is it going? Energy is usable power. It is not a feeling, or anything like that.

On a different note, there is homeopathy. The name for this is not something said when in company. If it worked, surely it would be available on the NHS, or there would be reputable scientific evidence?

Science does not have all the answers. That is the beauty of science. It doesn't make false claims to know everything. It just goes on, trying to find them, and it will never end. Even when it understands the universe, it will never know some of the key answers: what makes us human? Why are we not just a collection of atoms and electrical impulses? What is it that makes us us? I love science because of this: the complete, unashamed admittance that it doesn't know, but that it will strive to find out.

Also, there's the fact that you get to blow stuff up.

Bugger

For quite a while now, I have had tickets to visit the British Motor Show near Canary Wharf on the 1st of August with my mother and step-father. This was something that I was looking forward to, having enjoyed it last year.

In January my father and his wife bought a house in France, because he is soon going to have to leave his current accommodation, which he does not own. I have not yet been out to see it. He is going out to France on the 31st of July and coming back the following Tuesday.

Other than these two events, I have nothing planned for the holiday. We were just going to make it up as we went along. What are the chances that it happens over the same period? I am annoyed at this. If I were paranoid, I would suspect governmental conspiracy. Hell, I can be insane, IT WAS THE GOVERNMENT, DAMN IT!

I dub thee, "Something Stupid"

Why do people have the urge to call their children ridiculous names? By this, I do not mean names that might be considered slightly unusual, but names (if you can call them that) which just defy belief, such as Gwyneth Paltrow's daughter Apple, or someone I vaguely know called Azalea. An Azalea is a tree. This is like calling your child Pine, or Ash.

Or you've got Fifi Trixibelle Geldof, Peaches Honeyblossom Michelle Charlotte Angel Vanessa Geldof and Little Pixie Geldof. Bob Geldof tries to prevent cruelty all over the world, and yet look at what he did to his children. This is abuse, surely.

Or I heard of someone called Paris. Would you call your child London or Hull? No, so don't call them Paris.

Then, of course, there is the spelling. Now, some obscure spelling is absolutely fine, for example the Scottish spelling of Alastair is with a 'd' (Alasdair), however, something like 'Kortny' is just wrong trying to be different. I'm always wary of those with names spelt differently; it's as if they're trying to make up for something.

There is, however, a use for these 'names.' The government should employ someone with the specific task of looking at the names of people born in the UK (if it paid well, I'd be willing), and if the name is deemed mean, cruel or just plain stupid, the parents have to participate in compulsory parental training before taking a test and re-naming the child. If they fail the test, the child is given to people who, due to unfortunate circumstances, are unable to have children, and who would never call their child Brynxton Herbery Fiold. IVF is no longer necessary, and we have a drop in the rate of child-related misdemeanours. And if the original parents breed again, and haven't learnt their lesson, they are shot and used as cadavers. Everyone's happy.

Incidentally, making outlandish and controversial statements can be a laugh. He he he.

Age and Beauty

I like cars. In the not too distant future, I hope to own some decent ones, and perhaps some obscure ones (a hearse, for example). However, as a general rule, I do not like Porsches. They all seem to be driven by complete cocks who spend half an hour before the journey making sure that their fringe is just-so. This is something that I dislike.

Not only that, but all modern Porsches seem to look the same. Below are three entirely different models. For the life of me, I can't tell them apart:

All I can tell you about them is, "one is red." Excellent. But I can't help but wonder where it went wrong. In their past, Porsche have made some beautiful cars. One of my absolute favourite cars is the old Porsche 356 - Porsche's first production car:

How did Porsche get from this to the boring, indistinguishable cars that they churn out today? I just wish that they would sack either sack their designer or give him a kick up the hintern. I am bored of Porsche. Roll on Ford:

Oh no - it's the Rozzers!

Something that irks me is incorrect grammar. What irks me even more is that I find incorrect grammar irksome in any situation. I'd make an excellent member of the Grammar Police. For example, when I take notes in class and am writing very quickly, in handwriting that is indecipherable even by me, I will actually miss something that the teacher is saying just to correct that apostrophe over there. This comes to cause problems later on, when I am trying to learn from the incomplete notes with perfect grammar. That is not as easy as you'd think.

Stuck in Your Head

This morning, I woke up humming. Quite what I was humming, I didn't have a clue, but this song did not leave me all morning. I hate it when this happens.

Getting a song stuck in my head isn't normally that bad (unless it's a bad song, such as the Ketchup Song), but it is awful when I can't remember the words, only the tune. When that is the case, it just rattles around my head like a table-tennis ball hit by Wang Liqin into a ball pit.

When I finally get relief and remember the words, allowing me to actually enjoy the song (in this case, 'I'm a Man,' by the Spencer Davis Group), it leaves my head, and I am left with another song, again wordless, and at the moment still unknown. Damn.

Cobham

I like the name Cobham. Whilst cycling home after watching Kung Fu Panda (go see it - for an in-depth review click here) it occurred to me that there are a few good place names in the UK. This post is to celebrate that, and shall be expanded upon in due course as I discover more names.

Who knows; I may even dare to venture out of the UK and into other...places.

The names:

1. Cobham.

2. Clapham (also: Clapham Junction).

3. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (damn Wales).

4. Six Mile Bottom .

5. Whilst not a 'good' name, Hull has to be included.

6. Staines. I'm a child.

TB, you say? Fetch me my gun.

Seeing as the prom has occurred since my last post, you're probably thinking that I will be describing how surprisingly good it was, how I enjoyed myself, how I like chocolate fountains, and how I thought that Bernie did a good job with her after-party.

How wrong you are. THE BADGERS LIVE! Which, to be honest, is perhaps a bit daft. The problem with badgers, apart from the terrible obesity problems, is that they are spreading TB among the nation's cattle. This makes farmers annoyed and makes cows go, "moo," because they're cows and don't have a clue what's going on.

But fear not, ye workers of the land, I have a variety of solutions:

1. Electric fence around the cows (each individual one).
2. Electric fence around the field.
3. Badger food laced with arsenic.
4. Badgers laced with arsenic. Other cows will notice that they kill, and stay away.
5. Shoot the badgers.

I quite like option 5, because the badgers die in all of them anyway, and I want to try hunting. Hooray for badgers!

Maybe later...

As I look over my MSN Messenger contacts list on this, the night of the prom, I see one girl online from St Bede's. Everyone else is, presumably, engaging in tarting themselves up for the last night we have to get together and, in many cases, make drunken fools of ourselves.
What amuses me though is that whilst they are away applying make-up like it's the camouflage that will save them from sniper attack, and spraying various chemicals into their hair so that they end up looking like a cross between Amy Winehouse, Russel Brand and a feather duster, I am sat here thinking how late I can leave it before I have to go and get ready. TV is much more interesting.
On the same note, 'Pushing Tin' is on tonight, starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton. I wanted to see this, and it's on the night of the prom. Stupid prom. There's not even a hog roast.